Black & White Croakies Read online

  “Badger boogers!” I exclaimed. “That’s not good.”

  Grym shook his head. “That’s not what’s got me worried, though. I think that TV did something to McDonald.” His haunted gaze lifted to mine. “I think it grabbed him.”

  That took a beat to soak in. I sat there, blinking at him.

  Then horror hit, turning my spine to ice.

  I surged from my chair at the same time the sprite did. I ran toward the dividing door and flung it open, surging through before I thought about what might be waiting for us.

  The whistling theme song smacked us in the face like a fist. The sound was loud enough to lance my eardrums and make my head pulse. As we came into the room, it sliced off, leaving behind only a heavy silence.

  I jolted to a stop, Sebille slamming into my back with a grunt. I swung my gaze around the room, panic flaring to tighten my chest. The center of the giantnormous room was totally devoid of color. Everything within a growing circle of space was black, white, and gray. At the very center of the circle was the retrieved television artifact. But no ancient television show played across its screen. It was just snow. Black, white, and gray spots dancing behind the curved glass face.

  Just as it had been when we’d seen it at Dugan McDonald’s place.

  The floor in front of the television was empty except for the half-eaten remains of a frosted brownie.

  Smeared along the edge of the old artifact, as if the person who’d been eating the brownie had tried to hold onto the frame to keep from being pulled inside, were several long streaks of frosting.

  Like chocolate claw marks that screamed of fear and desperation.

  Grym came up behind me as my knees buckled, my head shaking in denial. “No, no, no, no, no…”

  He caught me, holding me upright with a densely muscled arm around my waist. “Naida?”

  Tears burned their way down my cheeks. “They’re gone,” I said, the words emerging thick and rough through my tear-clogged throat.

  Without a word, Sebille reached over and clasped my hand in hers. “We’ll get them back, Naida.”

  I just stood there shaking my head. Hobs, Wicked, and Slimy were gone. Probably sucked into that stupid artifact. And it was all my fault.

  I was a terrible parent.

  “I should have made them go outside to play,” I murmured, feeling as if my world had just crashed and burned beneath my feet. “I should have made them turn it off. I should have…”

  I sagged downward. Grym’s arm tightened around my middle, and it was the only thing holding me off the floor.

  2

  Magical Objects to Avoid at all Costs

  I sat on the stairs leading up to my apartment, staring at the slowly growing colorless area in the center of the artifact library. With Grym’s help, Sebille and I had moved as much as we could out of the area, and Lea was working on a specialized witch circle to contain the spread.

  Until she could come up with the perfect blend of herbs and magical energy to stop it from spreading completely, she’d thrown down a temporary dampening spell to at least slow it.

  I was trying to decide if I should call Madeline Quilleran and beg for her help, when Rustin arrived with little Sadie, the amalgamate dragon, in tow.

  I was so depressed it was all I could do to lift my head and nod at him. “Hey,” I said, my voice broken from an hour of crying and railing.

  Rustin squeezed my shoulder.

  Sadie flew over to Sebille and perched on her shoulder, chittering excitedly about something. “Keep her away from the circle, Sebille,” I told my assistant unnecessarily.

  Sebille offered me an eye roll but didn’t tell me I was an idiot. So that was something.

  “Tell me what’s going on?” the ghost witch said in a soft voice. Like everyone else, his manner was one of walking on eggshells. As if they all thought I’d break apart into a thousand tiny pieces if anybody talked to me.

  They could have been right.

  I shrugged. “They were just watching the old black and white television over there. Grym stopped by to tell us the man who had it before we took it was missing and that his home had started to lose its colors.”

  Rustin frowned over at the large, monotone circle across the massive library space. “Like that?”

  I nodded, lifting a tearful gaze to Rustin. “Grym thinks the TV took him.”

  “The man who owned it? How?”

  “I don’t know.” I sniffed, scraping the heel of my hand under my eyes. “Just sucked him inside, I guess. I think…” My voice closed up on me, and I couldn’t finish the thought.

  “We think Hobs, Wicked, and Slimy have been sucked inside too,” Sebille finished for me. She stood a few feet away from us, her bright green gaze locked on the artifact that was causing all the trouble. Sadie was uncharacteristically silent on her shoulder.

  I wondered if the little dragon understood the danger in the room, or if she was just reacting to our moods.

  “How long did the man have the artifact?” Rustin asked.

  “As close as we can figure, only a couple of days. He told Mrs. Foxladle on Sunday that he was looking for one. Theo sold him that,” I sent a murderous glare toward the television artifact, “Monday morning.”

  “And you don’t know when he disappeared?”

  I shook my head. “We picked this up last night. The kids have been staring at it almost nonstop since then.” I felt the urge to smile at the memory of them lined up in front of it, staring in fascination at the really bad black and white shows. “They’d never seen old TV shows before. They were obsessed.”

  Rustin nodded. “What happened…after?”

  I blinked rapidly, trying to understand what he was asking me. “They disappeared,” I said almost angrily, feeling as if he was being unusually dense.

  He shook his head. “I mean, to the artifact. Did it turn itself off?”

  “No,” Sebille responded. “It turned the show off, but the screen went to snow.” She jerked her chin to show him the snowy screen. None of us had wanted to get close enough to turn it off.

  “Then that started happening,” I said, nodding toward the color-stripped area,

  Rustin stared at it a long moment, his expression thoughtful. “I’ve heard of these kinds of artifacts. I’ve never seen one in action.”

  My eyes went wide. “What do you know about them?”

  “Not much. Only that the color stripping gets worse the more…er…energy it consumes. And the stripping will continue unless you do something to reduce its energy, like retrieve the vict…” He stopped himself before he said the word “victims” and cleared his throat. “People who’ve been drawn inside.” He frowned. “But the good news is, if you don’t turn it off, it won’t reset and it can’t pull anybody else inside.”

  The first thing Sebille and I had done when we’d retrieved it at McDonald’s house was to turn it off. We’d reset it.

  Flying frog flippers.

  “That would explain why it started leeching color so quickly here,” Sebille muttered. She sent me a haunted look. “It’s pulled in lots of new energy over the last couple of days.”

  Rustin looked as if there was something he wasn’t telling me. Something bad.

  I shook it off, not really needing any more bad news. “I’m only interested in how we get them back.”

  “Do you know?” Sebille asked the ghost witch. Her shimmery green gaze looked dull with worry.

  Rustin sighed. “Sorry. I don’t really know much about them. But there has to be information in the artifact library, Naida. It is an artifact. Have you researched it?”

  I hadn’t, I was ashamed to admit. I’d been too busy feeling sorry for myself and worrying about my cat, my frog, and my funny little friend.

  I pushed wearily to my feet. “I need to do that.”

  Rustin nodded. “Let me know if I can help. I’ll do anything…” He looked into my eyes. “I mean that, Naida. If you need to go in…I’ll do whatever I can to help
.”

  “Thanks, Rustin,” I told him. “That’s really nice of you.”

  He frowned, shaking his head. “It’s not nice,” he said, a little angrily.

  I blinked in surprise.

  “I feel…” He expelled air, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I grew kind of fond of that little green bus. I don’t like the idea of losing him.”

  I wanted to smack myself. Of course he felt bad about Slimy. They’d lived together…really together…for months when Rustin had been cursed into the frog by his evil uncle. “Do you want to help me research this?”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Please?”

  “I need to help too,” Sebille said.

  Need, not want. I noticed her word choice and commiserated. If I had to sit around thinking about all the terrible things that could be happening to them for much longer…

  Doing something had to be better than doing nothing and simply worrying.

  I nodded. “Okay, then let’s get started.”

  I shoved the pile of artifact orders aside on Shakespeare’s desk and placed my hands, palms down, over the leather blotter in the center. The aged, tooled leather blotter looked like a book. Shakespeare’s family sigil was embossed at the center of what would have been the front cover if it were really a book. The family motto was written along the faux spine in faint gold letters. Non Sanz Droict.

  Not without Right.

  Fortunately, as the current Keeper of the Artifacts, I had the right to utilize the magic in the desk to find a book, as had KoAs before me and future Keepers would do after I was gone.

  The desk was a great resource. A vast, virtual librarian with an endless inventory. I had only to ask the right question, and the appropriate tome would find its way to me.

  The trick was in asking the right question.

  The blotter warmed and shifted beneath my palms as I considered the problem. I had no idea what to even call the magic we were dealing with. Color leeching energy? The “television is bad for you” curse? Trans mutational monochrome magic? Color and people eating energy?

  “Try time and reality shifting metamorphic energy,” Rustin suggested as if reading my mind.

  He’d probably just read the blank expression on my face. An art form all its own.

  I nodded.

  “Desk, give me everything you have on time and reality shifting metamorphic energy objects.”

  The blotter warmed and shifted beneath my hands, the surface bubbling as if it were working out the problem. Then a flash of light occurred above the blotter, and a chunky volume entitled Magical Objects to Avoid at all Costs appeared. The book settled gently onto the scarred leather surface.

  Frowning, I glanced at the black leather book, the silvery lettering of its title so faint and the leather so worn the book appeared to be hundreds of years old.

  “Well, that title isn’t daunting at all,” Sebille muttered.

  A sense of despair welled up in me, a deepening pool of fear and dread. I suddenly couldn’t move from the overwhelming weight of it. “Wicked,” I whispered, the word barely squeezing through my clenched throat.

  Rustin reached past me and grabbed the book. “Why don’t I look at this one.”

  I nodded, not even bothering to look up.

  It took me a moment to realize the blotter was still shifting under my fingers. A beat later, another flash of light produced a second volume on the air before my face. The book looked relatively new, the embossed surface of the red leather cover still shiny and bright. The title on the second tome was The Case of the Disappearing Artifacts. Subtitled Artifacts that Disappear Objects and People.

  “This sounds like exactly what we’re looking for,” I told the sprite.

  Sebille nodded, “Let’s see what it says.”

  I reached out and touched the edge of the heavy leather cover. Before I could open it, the cover flipped open under its own steam and a familiar, if unwelcome, visage rose from the depths of the creamy yellow pages.

  The disembodied head turned toward me as it rose, his bright black eyes going slightly wider when he saw us.

  It was Doctor Mortimus Osvald, Professor of Devilry at the New York Institute of Magic.

  The picture on the first page was of Doctor Osvald’s full form, longer and leaner than I would have guessed, though I’d only ever seen his head floating around. In the photo, he was seated casually on a desk, his frame skewed slightly sideways, and a book held in one big hand resting against a long thigh. The man’s face was younger in the photo, fractionally less scary, but that was probably only because it was a slightly blurry picture, and it was hard to see the madness in the black eyes.

  The head, however, was floating before me in all its glorious madness. The professor’s scraggly dark brown hair hung past ears that were pressed tightly against his head and looked almost too small. The hair was stringy as usual, hanging in an untidy fashion against a throat with thick veining, as if someone was pinching him just under the chin to collect the blood there. The skin of his face was its usual ruddy color and looked as if he regularly rubbed it with sandpaper to keep it rough. The full lips pinched into a tight line as he stared back at me, clearly not any happier about our unexpected meeting than I was. “Professor Osvald,” I said, narrowing my gaze on him in lieu of a smile. “How are you?”

  “Keeper,” Osvald said in his arrogant voice, his hostile gaze skimming worriedly over the sprite.

  He might have reason to look worried.

  It was possible I might have slammed his book closed a little harder than necessary the last time we’d used one of his many magical reference tomes. And Sebille? Well, let’s just say she once threatened to introduce him to a book burning. Up close and personal.

  “To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?” Osvald asked in a cool tone.

  “No pleasure,” I told him, trying to look harmless and failing if the alarm pinching his face was any indication. Or maybe it was Sebille’s RBF, resting barracuda face, over my shoulder that was making him tense. Whatever it was, the man looked like he might pee his pants if he had any. “We have a big problem and we need your help.”

  One thick, black brow lifted. “Oh? And you believe this is a new thing? You having a problem?”

  I frowned at him. “No, but…”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sebille pretending to light a match and drop it on him.

  Some of the color left Osvald’s ruddy face. “What’s the problem?”

  I told him about the ancient black and white television, even stepping aside to show him its effects.

  He paled another couple of shades when he saw the giant, colorless area around it. “Oh my.”

  “Yeah,” I said, staring at it with what I was sure was a worried gaze. “And three of my friends were sucked into that thing. I need to know how to get them out.”

  Osvald’s head shook back and forth on the air. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Keeper. But you cannot retrieve your friends. They are lost in that world now.”

  He didn’t seem sorry at all. In fact, I saw a glimmer of satisfaction in his black eyes.

  I gritted my teeth against the desire to screech at him, my hand fisting at my sides. It probably wouldn’t do to punch the disembodied head into the wall behind the desk.

  It might leave a greasy mark on the paint.

  “Try again, Professor,” Sebille said.

  His black gaze rolled toward my assistant and widened. I turned to find her holding a roiling ball of green energy in her palm. He shook his head. “I can’t help you…”

  The ball of energy grew.

  Osvald made a small sound of fear and pointed his nose toward the book, clearly intending to book it out of there.

  I placed a hand over Sebille’s energy, extinguishing it. Taking a deep breath, I decided to appeal to his ego. “Please, Doctor Osvald. Nobody knows more about this kind of thing than you do. Can’t you help us?”

  He reluctantly slid his gaze from Sebille and sta
red at me for a long moment, his heavy, cracked lips still compressed into an unhappy line. Finally, he sighed.

  “Chapter Five,” he intoned in a colorless voice. The pages of the book on the desk flipped forward to the chapter he’d requested, falling still as a large, ornate number five appeared on top of the page.

  Osvald directed his attention downward, spinning to see the book better. “Time and reality-altering artifacts are singularly dangerous due to their determined focus,” he read. “The goal of this type of artifact is to remake the Universe in the image of that which they embrace. All else falls to the wayside. Any attempt to interrupt the flow of their invasive magic is quickly and thoroughly preempted, and the ‘attacker’ dispatched in a suitable way.”

  “Dispatched?” I squeaked, my stomach churning with acid.

  Osvald’s greasy head nodded. “In this case, I believe you’d be flung into the abyss without a means of returning. But there are always more fatal options.”

  “But who, or what would be policing the magic?” Sebille asked, frowning.

  Osvald shrugged his dense black eyebrows. “That depends on the reality at the forefront when the victims were tugged inside.”

  My memory replayed the whistling theme song, and I cringed. “Andrew of Mayberry. I have a couple of artifacts from that show.”

  Osvald’s gaze widened. “You do? That might help if you decide to go inside.”

  “Inside?” I asked, dread turning my palms sweaty. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the only chance you’ll have, Keeper. If you want to help your friends and stop this artifact from spreading its poison everywhere. You’re going to have to immerse yourself into the world of Andrew of Mayberry and find a way to shut it down. From the inside.”

  3

  Burn the Threat into Oblivion

  “I can’t believe none of these books can tell us how to stop one of these artifacts,” I exclaimed, shoving a long strand of brown hair behind my ears in a sign of my growing frustration.